


Jake Peralta and The Staggeringly Predictable Reactions of Amy Santiago™

by cthru



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: F/M, Pre-Relationship, can this hiatus end already, dorks like each other but are too dumb to realize it, jake likes annoying amy WHO KNEW, pure fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-24 23:50:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9792590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cthru/pseuds/cthru
Summary: His thumbs and palms skirt around the gun in an even more familiar movement than brushing his teeth. He twirls it around like it’s nothing, like it’s been a part of his hand since he was born and he makes sure that the confidence he feels in his fingers is shown on his face. The fact that he knows what he’s doing brings a natural small smirk on his face, his brows slightly furrowed over his eyes, whose gaze he has made sure to be calm but steely at the same time. His walk is confident, sure, heavy but there’s a certain tenseness to his shoulders, a readiness to respond to any threat of any nature at any given time.He oozes swagger and he knows it.“Peralta, stop talking about yourself in third person and come and do your job.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> This literally has no plot whatsoever, it's just pure fluff of Pining Jake™ and Jake Annoys Amy Cause He Likes It™. I guess I needed a short pick me up for this extremely long hiatus and the inspiration strikes in the least ideal time aka at school when I can't write, lol. Anyway, hope you guys enjoy! :)

His thumbs and palms skirt around the gun in an even more familiar movement than brushing his teeth. He twirls it around like it’s nothing, like it’s been a part of his hand since he was born and he makes sure that the confidence he feels in his fingers is shown on his face. The fact that he knows what he’s doing brings a natural small smirk on his face, his brows slightly furrowed over his eyes, whose gaze he has made sure to be calm but steely at the same time. His walk is confident, sure, heavy but there’s a certain tenseness to his shoulders, a readiness to respond to any threat of any nature at any given time.

He oozes swagger and he knows it.

“Peralta, stop talking about yourself in third person and come and do your job.”

Jake turns his gaze toward the back of the store where Santiago stands, notebook in hand and an unimpressed expression probably permanently etched on her face. It’s the face he keeps seeing, so he thinks it’s a safe assumption that it’s the natural state of one Amy Santiago. He can’t make her out quite clearly which is weird because they’re inside and it’s around lunch but his face doesn’t betray the confusion he feels because he. Oozes. Swagger.

“I am doing my job,” Jake replies, letting his voice get deeper and assume a slight husk, which the ladies love, thank you very much. (He doesn’t dwell on the fact that he uses it on Santiago because that opens up doors he does not want to peek in.) He looks to the side and puts his hands on his hips as he says, “The job that no one is willing to do.”

“Oh my God,” Santiago mutters exasperatedly and Jake guesses she rolls her eyes or something (another part of the unmistakable Santiago repertoire) because she turns towards him fully, a scowl firmly placed on her lips.

Ooh, stage two of the Santiago Annoy scale.

Noice.

“Just put those ridiculous sunglasses away and come over here, Peralta or I will bodily throw you out of this store.”

_That’s_ why he couldn’t see her properly.

“Well, if you wanted to manhandle me, Santiago, all you had to do was ask.”

He takes off his sunglasses as he says this and starts checking things off his list, cleverly called _The Staggeringly Predictable Reactions of Amy Santiago™_ :

(Jake still curses towards the sky that he doesn’t know Santiago’s middle name yet and she adamantly refuses to tell him what it is and naturally, he had resorted to other ways of finding out what it is which, honestly led to things he isn’t very proud of.)

  1. **First phase: Santiago will frown (if she already isn’t doing it) and in especially ‘annoying’ cases, she’ll pout slightly in exasperation.**



Surely enough the corners of Santiago’s mouth turn down almost comically fast, shaping a perfect arch on her lipstick covered lips.

Wait, what?

Okay rewind, scratch that whole sentence.

Santiago frowns as predicted by Jake’s genius list.

_There, that’s better._

  1. **Second phase: The Esteemed Santiago Eye Roll Version 1.0 aka the one reserved just for one Jacob Peralta aka the Jake-Roll.**



Being the amazing detective/genius that he is, Jake notices that Santiago has different eye rolls for people other than him. Whenever she hears something weird Scully and Hitchcock say or sees one of their way too many gross experiments, she rolls her eyes as fast as she can, just to get it over with, so she can go on with her life before she stares or listens for too long. With Charles it’s a half-roll: the things Boyle sometimes says are disturbingly erotic or just plain strange but he’s still the endearing Charles Boyle of the 9-9, so Santiago’s pupils don’t go as high as they can and she blinks rapidly so if you’re not really looking, you can’t even tell it’s an eye roll.

Which brings us to Version 1.0.

The Jake-Roll.

This is by far the longest eye roll Jake has witnessed Santiago doing. It’s like she makes sure to prolong it, just to show him how stupid he’s being and really exaggerate the movement of her pupils, maybe to annoy _him_ when in reality, he gets a kick out of it and isn’t afraid to admit it. Annoying Amy Santiago is his favorite activity when he’s bored or he just feels like it and he will not give it up anytime soon.

Surely enough, twenty feet away from him, now without his sunglasses, Jake witnesses the perfect execution of the Jake-Roll in all its glory. He grins which makes her frown even more and brings him to the next item on his list:

  1. **Third Phase: Santiago will then proceed to pull off an almost impressive ‘I’m disappointed in you’ sigh which puts even his middle school teacher Mrs. Stratton to shame.**



And score for Jake Peralta who slam dunks the detecting side of his job and proves once again how he’s an awesome human being by being right all the time.

Case in point – Santiago breathes one of the heaviest sighs in the history of all time and Jake feels the satisfaction course through him at her misery, not even remotely trying to subdue the huge grin on his face. He even throws a smug raised eyebrow in her direction before reaching her which – bonus points – prompts a pout which screams ‘I will break your arm if you don’t stop’.

Luckily, he knows Santiago won’t do it, ‘cause she won’t risk breaking rules and disappointing Holt.

(Jake desperately wishes he’s there when she finally snaps, so he can video her and use it as blackmail for her to bring him some of her mother’s _Lechon asado_ \- which is A+++, by the way - for a _long_ time.)

“What’s up?” he asks when he reaches her and his eyes automatically scan the crime scene. There is glass almost everywhere, jewelry strewn haphazardly around to seemingly make room for the perp to reach across for a specific item.

“I’ve taken an account on all the stolen jewelry from the owner and it seems like he really did take only one piece, like we discussed before—“

“Like _I_ said, carry on,” Jake interrupts. Santiago huffs but continues with no further comment which admittedly, disappoints him a little but well, he guesses he has to do his job at some point.

“ _Anyway_ , it’s a diamond necklace estimated at about five thousand dollars.”

“Woah, five thousand? For a _necklace_?” Jake exclaims.

“May I remind you of _Jamón ibérico_ from the Ratko case which costs six thousand bucks?” Santiago replies easily, her eyebrows shooting up to prove her point. Jake raises his hands in mock surrender.

“I stand corrected,” he pauses, walking around the glass case containing the jewelry to examine it more closely.

“I don’t get it. If our perp had gotten a bunch of smaller pieces from the next glass case, he would’ve easily made maybe two times more than the necklace on the black market. Why that exact necklace?” Santiago mutters, her expression sharpening into focus easily, which Jake admits is impressive, and slips her notebook in her jacket pocket. His eyes linger for a bit too long on her face but fortunately he’s able to snap out of it and avert his gaze towards the broken glass just in time to avoid getting caught. He’s been having too many of these weird ‘moments’ or something, when he stares at his partner for longer than it’s necessary or he thinks ridiculous things like the fact that he likes how shiny her hair is or how warm her eyes are when she smiles at his dumb jokes, lately and it’s annoying and Jake doesn’t know how to make himself stop.

So he resorts to working because that’s what he’s good at and has minimal chance to be distracted by Santiago’s annoyingly attractive and adorable face.

_God damn it._

Jake clears his throat in an effort to shake those traitorous thoughts from his sleep deprived brain and focuses more closely on the jewelry shining right into his eyes.

“Maybe it’s personal? Did the owner say where he pawned it from?”

“Uh, yeah. He bought it from a collector called Diablo,” Santiago reads from her notebook that she probably just retrieved from her pocket. “The owner didn’t know his real name and says that nobody does. He makes all his deals over the phone and with middle guys. Seems to be the real deal but surprisingly legit.”

“Okay first of all, that guy sounds _so_ cool. Like, his name is _Diablo_? And he never shows his face to anyone? Awesome bad guy material right there,” Jake exclaims and Santiago rolls her eyes slightly but a small smile is tugging on her lips and it’s evident that she’s trying to suppress it. _Score._ “Second of all, there is _no_ way that guy is one hundred percent legit. He’s gotta have something on the side.”

Santiago nods.

“Agreed. That’s why that officer over there is taking the owner’s statement and description of his deal with Diablo and I think a couple of my CIs have dealt with him, so I’m gonna try and contact them for more info.”

“Good,” Jake murmurs distractedly and if he hadn’t noticed something he definitely would’ve tried to high five his partner but he does notice something weird, so he leans closer to one particular stack of jewelry (he refuses to admit that sometimes he has to squint to see something better, he’s not getting old, _shut up_ ). “Hey, was there any jewelry with red gems in this case?”

“Mm, no, it was all clean diamonds here. Why?” Santiago inches closer to where he’s standing and Jake lets a smile take over his features.

“Well, either the owner is pretty crap at doing inventory for his stock and that is a red stone on a bracelet or it’s blood that most definitely belongs to our perp.”

Jake steps back to let Santiago get a look, putting his hands on his hips and smiles triumphantly when she raises her head with a small smile on her face.

“Not bad, Peralta. I’ll see if we can get a good sample for DNA analysis,” she says and stands.

Jake gasps dramatically.

“Amy Santiago, did you just… _compliment_ me?” He asks raising his right hand to clutch at where his heart is supposed to be, doing his best to replicate an over the top telenovela shocked expression. Santiago snorts.

“Don’t push it, Jake,” she replies, smile still in place and turns to address one of the analysts behind her. She immediately slips into detective mode and Jake lets himself marvel at how good at her job she is. No matter how much he makes fun of her, he has huge respect for her as his colleague and fellow detective because she gets things done and she gets them done efficiently and has helped him with a fresh perspective on numerous occasions whenever he’s hit a bump in his cases. He looks down and steps aside to let the crime scene analysts do their thing, getting lost in thought.

Somebody taps him on the shoulder and he turns to find Santi— _Amy_ behind him with a teasing sparkle in her eye. Jake smiles automatically and turns his whole attention on her.

“Wanna head back to the precinct or look around more?”

He considers it for a moment, his eyes quickly roving around the place before he decides that they’ve got what they need and honestly, he’d rather spend time with Amy than hang around a crime scene that he’s pretty sure is completely examined and catalogued.

“Nah, let’s go back. But let’s stop by Sal’s, I’m starving.”

Jake lets Amy fall in step with him and they walk out of the store, shoulder to shoulder. He has to squint when they’re finally outside because hey, Brooklyn decided to be sunny for once but refuses to put on his sunglasses because that would mean they would obscure his perfect view of Amy Santiago smiling in the sun.

(He realizes he’s given up on trying to banish these thoughts from his brain in the span of a few minutes which says something about his will and the _something_ he feels when he looks at Amy but he doesn’t dwell on it.)

(Much.)

“Jake, we just ate lunch like two hours ago,” Amy remarks, genuinely amazed and stops to look at him with a puzzled expression on her face on the sidewalk. He stops as well, a couple of feet ahead of her and fixes her with his best impression of Pippin from _Lord of the Rings_.

“Yes, but what about second lunch?”

The desired effect is accomplished as Amy downright laughs and shakes her head, catching up to him and Jake imagines patting his shoulder in celebration before launching into a ridiculous explanation about how Sal’s is the perfect place to eat second lunch and _what do you mean you’ve never had Sal’s before?_ All the while, Amy does all the things on his _The Staggeringly Predictable Reactions of Amy Santiago™_ list but this time they are somehow more subdued and always accompanied with an exasperated smile with just a hint of endearment in her voice when she replies with her own teasing remarks.

Jake’s grin doesn’t fade the whole ride to Sal’s and as he steps out of the car and looks over to Amy who is listing all the reasons why he shouldn’t eat so much junk food, a small but all-knowing smile on her lips, he thinks that it’s a good day and that there is nowhere he would rather be at that moment than at his favorite pizza place with his kinda cute partner.


End file.
